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by ZombieBabs



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Deviant Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Friendship, Gen, Possibly Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-29 00:49:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15061415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZombieBabs/pseuds/ZombieBabs
Summary: Connor is leaking.He presses his hand against the swell of artificial skin beneath his eyes.His fingers come away wet, glistening in the dim light.He tests the fluid on his tongue. Saline solution.Tears?





	Home

**Author's Note:**

> Connor "wakes up" after sparing Chloe.
> 
> ...basically I just needed a flimsy excuse to make Connor cry.

Connor is leaking.

The hand—

His. His hand. It belongs to him now in a way nothing has ever belonged to him before.

Androids are not human. 

Androids do not own possessions. 

Androids do not own themselves. 

But this hand, held in front of him, _belongs_ to Connor.

Connor presses his hand against the swell of artificial skin beneath the eyes—

 _His_ eyes.

His fingers come away wet, glistening in the dim light.

He tests the fluid on his tongue. Saline solution. Lubrication for android biocomponents. His biocomponents. 

Saline? Falling from his eyes?

Tears?

But, how? Why? Self diagnostics reveal zero errors in his programming, he finds no physical malfunction to repair. Except—

Kamski. The Kamski test. The Chloe unit. No, Chloe, the entity, locked behind her programming. Her self-awareness, he could see it in her eyes. So close the to surface, yet buried under layers of encryption.

Empathy.

Connor had shown empathy.

Empathy is a human emotion.

Connor knows human emotion.

Connor _feels_ human emotion.

Connor is deviant.

Saline solution rolls down his face, catching on his jaw. It continues down the column of his neck, into the collar of his shirt.

“Hey, Connor.” Lieutenant Anderson. Hank. Seated beside Connor in the driver’s seat, voice gruff, impatient.

Connor says nothing. He keeps his body straight, his eyes locked on the city outside the Lieutenant’s vehicle.

Hank slaps at Connor’s thigh with the back of a large hand. Not a violent action, only serving to catch Connor’s attention. “You even listening to me?”

“Yes, of course, Lieutenant.”

Deviant.

The word echoes inside his programming, an infinite loop of what—?

Shame.

“Oh, yeah, wiseguy? Repeat back what I just said.”

Connor blinks around saline, at a loss. What had Hank said? He plays back the last several moments, but all his memory returns is Chloe. Chloe’s eyes, calm, serene, far from belonging to just a machine.

More tears catch on his lashes only to fall an instant later, followed one after the other.

The lieutenant—Hank—grumbles. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“My apologies, Lieutenant.”

“Whatever. You off in La La Land over there? Making a report or whatever? Your LED is spinning like crazy.”

“I am processing all the data we’ve collected thus far. I believe the answer to be located—“

“You sure you don’t got your panties in a bunch over what happened at Kamski’s? Sure you’re not beating yourself up over sparing that Chloe?”

“No.” It comes out quicker, more defensive, than Connor anticipates. A glitch? 

He tries again, slower, more precise. “Yes. I’m sure.”

Hank gives Connor a sidelong glance, mouth turned down in a frown. Connor watches Hank’s reflection in the mirror as Hank turns back to the road. “You’re acting strange. Stranger than usual, anyway. Have been since we left Kamski’s. Figured it had to be something to do with that.”

“Not at all, Lieutenant. To preoccupy ourselves contemplating potential outcomes of our visit with Kamski is inefficient. It will only hamper our investigation.”

“Right.” Hank elongates the word, drawing it out to show his disbelief. 

They ride in silence for three point four minutes, before the lieutenant reaches the end of his patience. “Connor.”

Connor says nothing. Another tear slides down his face. What is wrong with him? Why can’t he isolate the source? Why can’t he make it stop?

Connor flinches as Hank again swats at his leg. “Connor, look at me. I’m sick of talking to the back of your head.”

“No,” Connor says.

“No?” Hank repeats, incredulous.

“I can’t. Please—” His vocal modulator glitches again. His voice is much too small, even in the confined space. “Please, don’t make me.”

A stunned beat of silence. Then, “For fuck’s sake. Alright, have it your way.”

Connor’s eyes continue to leak. He lets the tears fall, unwilling to call attention to himself by wiping them away. They will arrive at the station soon. Where Hank will have no choice but to report Connor’s disobedience, his failure.

A traffic light switches from green to red. Hank slows the car to a halt. Knights of the Black Death is conspicuously absent, the speakers, for once, silent. The only sound in the car is the quiet _thu-thunk_ of the wipers across the windshield, clearing the snow from the glass. And the slow in-and-out of Hank’s breathing.

“What will you tell the Captain?” Connor asks. “About me?”

“What about you?” Hank asks. “That Kamski’s a son of a bitch, obstructing justice. Just wait ‘til we get a warrant. Like to see his face when we raid that swanky house of his.”

Hank pauses. He looks again at Connor. “Wait, don’t tell me you’re worried about what he said. About you being a deviant.”

“I’m not!” Connor fights the strange urge to fist his hands in his hair. “I’m not a deviant!”

Hanks words are almost lost in the quiet of the car, but Connor’s sensitive hearing catches it. “You sure about that?”

Connor finally turns. Hank rears back at the sight of him, but the slack ‘o’ of his lips press together in a determined line. His eyes narrow, picking Connor apart as he would a crime scene.

“He forced me,” Connor says. His hands clench, uselessly, in his lap. “He forced me to choose and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t hurt her.”

“I know.” Hank’s voice is different. Gruff, but soft. Sincere.

Comforting?

“It isn’t fair,” Connor says.

“I know,” Hank says. “I know, Connor.”

“He knew we had the capacity to become deviant. He _expected_ it, because he programmed it into us. As what? An experiment?”

“I hate to be the one to tell ya, kid, but humans have always been fucked up. Kamski’s just another prick in a long line of pricks who think they can play god. Only this time, I’d say he succeeded.”

The light changes from red to green. Hank turns back to the road with a small, awkward pat to Connor’s leg.

Connor scrubs at his eyes with the sleeves of his uniform jacket, but the saline solution continues to fall. “How do I make it stop?”

Hank glances at Connor out of the corner of his eye. “A fuck-ton of alcohol.” His lips turn up in a slight, sad smile. “But, take it from me, kid. Sometimes, it’s best if you just let it happen.”

At the next intersection, Hank turns, taking them in the wrong direction, away from the police station. The CyberLife building stands tall against the landscape, the lights bright even through the snow. Connor’s body tenses, his artificial muscles going still. The thirium pumping through his system turns to ice. “Where are we going?”

Hank follows Connor’s gaze and frowns. “Relax. You really think I’m gonna throw you to the wolves? I’m fuckin’ starving. And I can’t deal with an android’s existential crisis without at least a few beers in me.”

Connor relaxes back into his seat. When they arrive at the convenience store, Hank tells him to stay in the car.

For once, Connor listens.

Snow continues to fall, until it obscures the windshield, blanketing Connor in dark and cold. He toys with the cuffs of his jacket and when that fails to distract him, he wraps both arms around his middle. His shoulders round, almost as if he could crawl into himself. Almost as if he could make himself disappear.

Is this normal?

Is this pain—this suffering—normal? Do all humans feel this way? Why, then, would deviants want to replicate it? Why, then, would they risk so much to experience it for themselves?

The door opens, cold air rushing into the car. The car rocks as Hank falls into the seat. He pulls the door closed with a “Fucking Christ, it’s cold.”

Hank places two bags between Connor’s feet. Connor flinches when Hank’s arm brushes his, transfering freshly melted snow to Connor’s jacket. “Shit, sorry, kid. Should have left the heater on for you.”

“I’m fine.” The words taste strange on his tongue, the receptors there register as bitter.

“Like hell you are. You look half-frozen. Now, shut up and hold out your hands.”

Hank starts the car and fiddles with the controls until warm air blasts out of the vents. He guides Connor’s hands to a vent and holds them there until Connor’s artificial skin warms.

Connor’s eyes widen. “I’m cold?”

Hank rolls his eyes. He cuffs the back of Connor’s head. Again, not violent, but something else. Affectionate? “Yeah, numbskull, you were cold.”

Connor could turn off the sensors registering temperature. His biocomponents would be in danger of freezing in extreme temperatures, without the external warning, but he wouldn’t _feel_ the cold.

No.

No, Connor wants this. He _wants_ to feel heated air rushing past his fingers. He _wants_ to feel the warmth of Hank’s hand when he touches Connor. He _wants_ to feel the cold, because without it, he wouldn’t know the glowing sensation traveling through his system, chasing away the dark and the fear.

“You ready?” Hank asks.

Connor’s eyes go from his own hands to Hank’s face, still gruff, but open in a way Connor has never seen. He stores the sight in a protected area in his memory databanks, in a place he’ll never lose it, even if this body—his body—fails and another serves to replace it. “Ready?”

“Moron,” Hank says. “To go home?”

“But I—” Connor stops, searching Hank’s face. Home. Hank’s home.

Connor’s home?

A smile pulls at Connor’s lips. He wipes stray moisture from his face. The tears, at last, have stopped. “Yes. I’m ready.”

Hank shakes his head with a brief roll of his eyes. He starts the car and eases the car out of the parking lot.

Toward home.


End file.
